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Meaning 1: An original equipment manufacturer, or OEM, manufactures products or components that are purchased by another company and retailed under that purchasing company's brand name.[1] OEM refers to the company that originally manufactured the product.

Meaning 2: The term OEM may also, somewhat counter-intuitively, refer to a company that purchases for use in its own products a component made by a second company.[3] Under this definition, if Apple purchases optical drives from Tosh

I know you are trying to be funny, but you are just showing that you are ignorant racist.

Ignorant yes; racist we don't have much evidence for. Nobody makes jokes about cheap Taiwanese batteries even though Taiwan is largely ethnically Chinese. By the time Japan had recovered to the level that China is at today it already had a reputation for quality. The reason is simple. Taiwan is a democracy with proper freedom of speech and so the quality of things made there has gone up massively. Japan mostly the same. If someone tried things like they get away with in China then someone would speak up. Things like the crap that goes on in China - deadly chemicals in baby milk - failing to buy properly made signalling equipment from Siemens to save a few euros and then trying to bury a train full of dead people - would never go on if Chinese people in China had control of their own destiny instead of a bunch of party plutocrats.

The racists are the people who say things like "democracy isn't suitable for China".

The racists are the people who say things like "democracy isn't suitable for China".

It isn't. But then it isn't suitable for the US either. The US was set up as a non-democratic republic, with voting. You vote on people who vote on people, who vote on laws. With the information age, there's no reason we couldn't vote on laws directly. We vote on electors, the electors vote on President. We don't vote for president because our vote is not one-man one-vote. Chinese people believe that professional politicians are better suited for making decisions. They are paid to have the high-leve

Giving the guy in the neighborhood that's torn down for the Olympic Village a vote on whether to do it is inappropriate

Given the greater stake he has in the issue, he most definitely should have a vote.

Chinese people believe that professional politicians are better suited for making decisions

By professional politicians, you mean the 'princelings' who got their positions because of who their parents are?

In western history and philosophy, a lot of time and thought went into determining how to get the best people into positions of power so as to best benefit the state. After thousands of years of experience, democracy is the most effective way we've found to avoid the worst excesses of dictatorships, and at the same time it provides ok governance in general. This is so true that most countries have switched to some kind of democracy, and even a lot of the remaining dictatorships make an effort to pretend to be democratic.

Yes, they can. There are votes in China. It's not overly dissimmilar than the US. The primaries allow you to select a candidate from a short-listed group selected by the elite. The general election lets you select between candidates approved by the party. That there's only one party in China and two in the US (so no need for both a primary and election with only one party), though the two in the US are controlled by the same interests, so we have one party with two names. Again, the more people try to

Alcatel/Thales wrote the train control software for the San Francisco Municipal Railway (SF had to sue Thales to get their shit working even half-way decently), the in-flight entertainment for some (all?) of Air Canada's planes the last time I flew them (the whole system had to be rebooted repeatedly), and they designed the chipsets for the early popular DSL modems. I can't say I've got fond memories of any of these products.

" The batteries are Japanese (Yuasa) in origin, sourced by a French company (Alcatel/Thales)."

Yuasa has been around the block--they've been making batteries for many years.

I used to have a Kawasaki KT 120 trail-bike that had a Yuasa battery in it--the original that came with the bike-- and that bike had suffered no less then half a dozen complete submersions, had the head warped several times from numerous creeks crossings at high speed, been subjected to insane G-forces (being tossed end over end down hills in failed hill-climb attempts) and lived it's entire life exposed to sea-salt, including beach rides.

The only thing I ever had to do to the Yuasa battery in it was add some acid once.

An inspection of the All Nippon Airways 787 that made an emergency landing in western Japan found that electrolytes, a flammable battery fluid, had leaked from the plane's main lithium-ion battery. Investigators found burn marks around the damage.... The two incidents resulted in the release of flammable electrolytes, heat damage and smoke, the FAA confirmed. The release of battery fluid is especially concerning, safety experts said.

Once the electrolyte (which includes the lithium) catches fire it is very hard to put out. Boeing, knowing this provided special containment [ap.org] for these batteries, which has kept the fires from doing much besides destroying the battery (so far). However the risks are very real that this will be insufficient.

Large size Lithium batteries (over 8 to 25 grams of lithium) are not even allowed on aircraft as baggage or carry on, due to the propensity to burn when shorted or punctured, but some how Boeing talked the FAA into certifying this plane with these batteries to save a weight. Bad enough that these batteries are prone to catch fire when shorted, but Lithium fires are almost impossible to put out with the fire suppression systems found on planes [faa.gov] (page 9). How Boeing talked the FAA into allowing this on the plane (in multiple locations) is beyond me.

As everyone should know, modern airliners are pressurized. Now it is generally considered a BAD idea if it was to depressurize in midflight by say a window or door blowing out. How do you make it hard for this to happen? Well, you make the door open to the INSIDE, so that when locked and the airplane is under pressure, the pressure will press the door INTO the frame, making it impossible to blow out. This is why airline doors open INTO the aircraft and NOT out.

Basic stuff right? Only a company with no care for safety would change it.

Well boeing did it, so they could shove more cargo in it.

But surely then they would build the door really really well and have it tested really really well?

no... they did not and a LOT of people died when the door inenvitably did blow out and brought down the airplane.

Boeing has ALWAYS taken shortcuts and never given a shit about the risk and the FAA has always let them get away with it. Read up on the cargo door, it took a second incident for Boeing to be told to fix it BUT it was allowed to keep the outside opening door despite it being an obvious weak area.

You have to remember that in airliners, the interests are so gigantic that there is gigantic pressure on the engineers to find shortcuts and for those who are charged to oversee safety to look away so that their nations industry isn't hampered.

As everyone should know, modern airliners are pressurized. Now it is generally considered a BAD idea if it was to depressurize in midflight by say a window or door blowing out. How do you make it hard for this to happen? Well, you make the door open to the INSIDE, so that when locked and the airplane is under pressure, the pressure will press the door INTO the frame, making it impossible to blow out. This is why airline doors open INTO the aircraft and NOT out.

Basic stuff right? Only a company with no care for safety would change it.

Well boeing did it, so they could shove more cargo in it.

But surely then they would build the door really really well and have it tested really really well?

no... they did not and a LOT of people died when the door inenvitably did blow out and brought down the airplane.

Boeing has ALWAYS taken shortcuts and never given a shit about the risk and the FAA has always let them get away with it. Read up on the cargo door, it took a second incident for Boeing to be told to fix it BUT it was allowed to keep the outside opening door despite it being an obvious weak area.

You have to remember that in airliners, the interests are so gigantic that there is gigantic pressure on the engineers to find shortcuts and for those who are charged to oversee safety to look away so that their nations industry isn't hampered.

There are thousands of engineering decisions in any plane that come down to a tradeoff between cost, performance, and safety. It wasn't just the "non-plug" door that caused the accident, but an electrical problem and faulty latch combined with the door design allowed the door to blow off. [wikipedia.org]

What good is a much safer aircraft if no one can afford to fly in it because it's so expensive to purchase and operate? There's nothing wrong with designing the aircraft to allow more cargo (thus lowering operating expenses), as long as risks are mitigated in other parts of the design - the 747 is one of the safest aircraft in the world, despite the design of the cargo door.

The aircraft could have been safer with conventional doors. Other aircraft were economical with conventional doors. People died because Boeing wanted to cut costs and then was sloppy with it.

And it seems they did it again. Everyone knows these batteries are risky but to save a bit of weight, Boeing went for them regardless AND just a tiny bit into production, it becomes clear they did NOT engineer it correctly. Or test it for that matter. This ain't software "engineering" in real world engineering you eith

And is there any measure of safety that backs up your claims? Last I heard, modern commercial jets, including Boeing's, were excessively safe [wikipedia.org] as measured by deaths per passenger mile with about an order of magnitude lower than the next two competitors, buses and trains.

I don't know the relative safety of Boeing compared to other developed world jet makers, but it can't be much worse than the norm (just due to how many Boeing jets are flying out there) and not throw the statistics.

As everyone should know, modern airliners are pressurized. Now it is generally considered a BAD idea if it was to depressurize in midflight by say a window or door blowing out. How do you make it hard for this to happen? Well, you make the door open to the INSIDE, so that when locked and the airplane is under pressure, the pressure will press the door INTO the frame, making it impossible to blow out. This is why airline doors open INTO the aircraft and NOT out.

Basic stuff right? Only a company with no care for safety would change it.

Well boeing did it, so they could shove more cargo in it.

AirBus A330 and A380 both have outward opening doors. CRJ700 does too. From pictures I've seen, it looks like at least some MD-80, DC-8 and DC-10 did well.

I wonder why they didn't go with LiFePO4 batteries, much less likely to combust and the ~20% lower volume density wouldn't have been that big a deal (and of course the price difference is a non-issue on something the cost of an airliner)

The battery issue is front and center as it should be - if you have seen images of the melted battery it's pretty scary. But there are OTHER issues as well, from leaky fuel lines to bubbles and delam issues in the compositesâ¦

Sure, EADS's shares are up, and since their major competitor Boeing had bad news today, perhaps we can speculate that "EADS shares up on bad news for rival Boeing", as finance journalists like to speculate. But you know who else's shares went up today? Boeing's. The stock market is weird, and a lot of factors go into price movements.

the 737 and lots of other planes have been grounded in the past. these are complex machines and its not a big deal to have initial problems

The last time the FAA grounded an entire commercial airframe was the DC10 in 1979, it is a very big deal. That said, I have no doubt Boeing will sort the problems and normal service will be resumed shortly.

The Boeing 737 Classic series (737-300, -4-00 and -500) was grounded for a period of time in 1989 after the Kegworth crash - no, its not an "entire commercial airframe", because it didn't cover the earlier 737-100 and -200, but the airframes are so different that it could be considered such.

That's a bit different. Even then, the DC-10 was very, very popular, and the method of grounding was very different. For the DC-10, they yanked the type certificate- it effectively became illegal to fly that aircraft. For the 787, it's a new aircraft, fairly experimental, and as for the grounding, it's an AD temporarily halting operations. Not quite as severe as revoking the type cert.

All new aircraft have issues. A380 discovered cracks in the wings and engine problem when it first came out. Just like software, you try and test but some stuff is just not detected until it's deployed into the real world.

All new aircraft have issues. A380 discovered cracks in the wings and engine problem when it first came out. Just like software, you try and test but some stuff is just not detected until it's deployed into the real world.

This,

Although the Trent 900 issue would be a better example.

People are just blowing it out of proportion due to a perceived rivalry between Airbus and Boeing. Butthurt fanboys on both sides just looking to bash the other. They're as bad as apple/google fanboys (or holden/ford in Australia) and often make just as little sense. I'm surprised I haven't heard "Scarebus" mentioned yet, I've heard Screamliner a few times.

Every single model of aircraft has a list of shit that LAME's (Licensed Aircraft Mai

There are a lot of "revolutionary" technology being used on this aircraft, many news techniques and materials that will play big roles in future commercial jets. So is this a design issue or a management issue?

They always outsource building some of the parts - in-fact, more than 30% of the Boeing 777 is sourced from outside the US, so its nothing new.

As I said in the last thread - there are no circumstances under which Boeing would have built these batteries, their chargers, their containers or the mounting brackets. They are bought in for every aircraft built by Boeing or Airbus.

No doubt. I wonder how often (if ever) they check the reliability of the components they outsource. Perhaps, as is common, they just trust the manufacturer's published test results and treat any problem as a contractual one.

It does indeed *look* bad, until you know what you should be looking for - the exterior of the box is largely unburned, and the strap is intact with no signs of burning, so the box did its job in containing the fire. The lid was removed by the fire personnel, using a tool which caused the dent in the left hand side, and the box was thrown from the aircraft.

The charring on the front of the box was caused by the connecting mechanism on the front arcing, and not the main fire itself.

So all in all, yes it looks bad, but in actuality the box did its job!

The A380's had quite a few missteps when they first went into service as well. Both are very new designs with a lot of new tech, sadly I am sure eventually one of them will be a fatal misstep, still won't stop me flying on them, I get an an A380 for a 17 hour flight in 2 days. I don't think I would be any less comfortable if it was a Dreamliner.

This plane uses a tremendous amount of electricity, see: http://www.wired.com/autopia/2013/01/boeing-787-electric-fire-grounding/ [wired.com]The li-ion batteries are from a company in Japan, but I wonder where they were manufactured. In the past, subcontractors outside Japan have done shoddy jobs making batteries, such as replacing mylar with paper. Once it's sealed up, how do you test it? Additionally, these batteries use cobolt oxide and are even more prone to overheating than tradition li-ion batteries. The batteries took a long time to certify.

A notorious SwissAir crash over the Atlantic was due to an overheated electrical bus. In a rush to get gambling devices onto seat backs, the airline had gone with a system that required a full computer for each display, which required more power than a more centralized system.

These batteries are a new formula? Maybe this is the revenge of the capacitor plague [wikipedia.org]

Once it's sealed up, how do you test it?

You could always do, you know, random sampling when accepting delivery from subcontractors. Take a few batteries, rip them open and verify they're what they're supposed to be. I'm sure a big company like Boeing working on such a large project would have a whole department of people who do nothing but testing.

Two things come to mind. In previous bad battery situation, the initial run of batteries were fine. Then when they went into production, perhaps with other subcontractors, they got the garbage.

Also, with the extensive testing of the planes, we've got to assume they run them under max power load, with every seat running laptops, playing movies on seatbacks, etc., right? And max use of air circulation, etc. And whatever else makes the batteries cycle to make up for generated power, however it works.

Some problems, especially manufacturing defects, only manifest themselves with a large enough sample size. Presumably none of the aircraft they used for certification encountered this particular problem.

Working as a process development engineer, I can't tell you how many times I've run into a problem in high volume that didn't show it's head in testing. There are only so many variables you can test, especially if you have constraints to your sample size. From my experience major failures are never a single variable, but rather, an interaction between different variables that don't show statistical significance until you get a big enough sample.
15 years ago I worked putting together battery packs for small aircraft, and they were quite complicated, including heater elements and management electronics. I can only imagine how complex the systems are for something as large as a 787. The problem may not be with the actual battery, but the system which regulates the power.

More likely Boeing didn't test the batteries in the way people are now using them in the real world. Any engineer can tell you that it is nearly impossible to predict all the things, even the common things people will do with your new product before it is released.

Japan grounded all of its Dreamliners a day earlier than America or the EU, and yet they aren't mentioned in the headline? There are 24 Dreamliners in service in Japan, more than in any other country. You'd think they'd get some credit for having their air safety experts raise the alarm while the US was still "confident in the safety of the aircraft.

They raised the alarm first because the aircraft that had to make an emergency landing was in Japan -- it has nothing to do with their air safety experts being better, just with them getting the first news of the problem.

The Japanese grounding was not an aviation authority move, it was individual airlines taking the prudent step on their own and has happened several times for several different aircraft types (after the A380 engine failure, several airlines took their aircraft out of use for checks) - the big news here is that the FAA took a very big step in issuing a grounding order, its not one that happens often.

It really seems silly to me that they chose to use a lithium ion battery with a cobalt cathode for use as a critical component of an airplane. They are not environmentally friendly, prone to fire, and don't last as long as some other technologies. They could have gone with a Lithium Iron battery and been much safer and require less maintenance. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_iron_phosphate_battery [wikipedia.org] That would have only added about 18 pounds to the entire aircraft, certainly worth the greatly increased safety factor. Just goes to show that this plane was built to be a cheap as possible with only cursory regard to safety.

None of this is "silly." 18 pounds of additional weight requires an additional gallon of fuel for every 40 hours of flight, perhaps 2,500 gallons of fuel over the lifetime of the aircraft. This would cost the plane's owner $12,500 in additional fuel costs (at a rate of $5.00 per gallon for jet-A.) If Boeing sells 1,000 planes, that's over a million dollars in extra fuel costs to their customers.

Would I spend $1,000,000 to prevent a fire on an aircraft? Absolutely. Would I spend that $1,000,000 if I believed the planes were safe with the batteries that the battery engineering firm signed off on? Probably not.

From a story in one of the above comments, a subcontractor's engineer working on the battery assembly was claiming it was unsafe and that his supervisor was pressuring him to sign off on the battery despite his concerns; when he failed to do so he was fired. We don't know if any of that information made it back to Boeing, but if it had, they probably would not have accepted the batteries from the supplier without further review.

None of this is "silly." 18 pounds of additional weight requires an additional gallon of fuel for every 40 hours of flight, perhaps 2,500 gallons of fuel over the lifetime of the aircraft. This would cost the plane's owner $12,500 in additional fuel costs (at a rate of $5.00 per gallon for jet-A.) If Boeing sells 1,000 planes, that's over a million dollars in extra fuel costs to their customers.

I'm afraid it's too late for that now. The work required to make this plane safe will utterly negate any savings airlines were hoping to make and render the plane totally redundant, even with carbon composite usage.

Except Boeing would not be paying that fuel cost. It's customers would. And when you figure the per passenger flight hour rate of the extra fuel for that, it's about $0.0005. Yes, thats 5 100ths of a penny added to the ticket price of a passenger making a 1 hour flight. There is cutting corners and then there is cutting corners. The main batteries of a fly-by-wire plane is not the place to be cutting corners like this. It costs them more to carry the trash you make during the flight then it would to

Except Boeing would not be paying that fuel cost. It's customers would.

Yep. And the customers are very, very sensitive to lifetime fuel costs and very, very serious about reducing them. Fuel is an airlines number one non labor cost, so any saving translates directly to the bottom line.

when you figure the per passenger flight hour rate of the extra fuel for that, it's about $0.0005.

Which certainly sounds like a small number... until you multiply it by the number of passengers on an average plane, the number of flight hours per plane per day, and the number of planes in the fleet. It adds up pretty fast. There's a reason why the pocket on the back of the seat in front of you is no longer stuffed with free magazines. Cutting a pound here, cutting a pound there, it adds up to a huge sum considered on an annual basis across an entire airline. (Seriously Slashdot, you may be good at math, but you suck at accounting.)

There's more than 18 pounds of variation between flights of the typical passenger and luggage payload.

That doesn't change the fact that decreasing the fixed load on the airframe decreases fuel costs. Nor does it change the fact that airlines are sensitive to fuel costs and go to great lengths to decrease them.No amount of handwaving, smokescreens, willful disbelief of reality, or second guessing by those with no knowledge can change those facts.

There's more than 18 pounds of variation between flights of the typical passenger and luggage payload.

That doesn't even make sense. Variations in weight doesn't mean that the luggage or the passengers are weightless, it just means the standard deviation of their average weight has a value larger than zero. Those amounts are factored into the equation for calculating the fuel needed to carry those passengers and their luggage to their destinations.

The hand wringing over long term fuel costs from a slightly heavier battery is nonsense. If micromanaged weight savings is so important then have the stewardesses remove their clothes before boarding.

The math is fairly simple. Cutting 18 pounds of additional static weight equates to $12,500 dollars worth of fuel saved over the projected 30 year lifetime of t

For a more stable unit. I understand that it'll add about 20 pounds. Just carry one less piece of luggage, and you can use the heavier batteries. I'm not quite sure what these batteries are for... Does this aircraft not have an APU?

I find that difficult to believe, so I can only assume these batteries are for some piece of redundancy, like continuing to power the black boxes in case of total power failure. Sounds like a simple and fairly inexpensive replacement (as opposed to installing an all new wiring ha

Does it matter? If it has an APU, it would STILL need battery backup. Modern jets can't fly without electricity to power their computers. If you make the jet's ability to fly dependent upon a functioning APU, someday a failed APU will cause a crash. And even if it has redundant APUs, batteries are so cheap relative to the cost of a crash due to total power loss, Boeing would have had to be completely INSANE to make a plane without battery backup power.

The batteries are used primarily to start the APUs. They are required because unlike just about any other commercial aircraft the APUs are actually needed in flight. This is how they can come up with the engine efficiency claims as they don't use bleed air from them for power, they always use the APUs. So in the event of an in flight restart having to happen you need the batteries.

One of the more troubling things, in my opinion.. related to this were the actions of USA Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood..

Only hours before the FAA issued its order [to ground the 787], Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood reiterated to reporters that he considers the plane safe and wouldnâ(TM)t hesitate to fly one. LaHood and FAA Administrator Michael Huerta unequivocally declared the plane safe at a news conference last week even while they ordered a safety review of the aircraft.

So, in this guys opinion.. knowing what we all know.. he tells everyone is safe and he wouldnt hesitate to fly one?!

On Jan. 7, it took firefighters 40 minutes to put out a blaze centered in an auxiliary power unit of a Japan Airlines 787..that doesnt sound like a perfectly save thing to me!

I have to wonder why he sees the need to save face. I know Boeing plays a big part in our economy and that the govt needs to keep them appearing as a great company.....but shouldnt his job to be anything but misdirecting attention from the possible dangers here?!

Why isnt he running the feet of boeing and the FAA over the coals instead of acting like the
local cop saying NOTHING TO SEE HERE?!

This plane may be perfectly fine and just having teething problems as Boeing says, but it's made me wary and perhaps even angry since before it launched because the 787 was winning awards and accolades for being revolutionary and new and blah blah blah well before it had taken even a taxi test.

My feeling it, let the model prove itself first and then worry about awards. The 747 has proven itself. The 737. Even the 757 and 767 although nobody much cares about those two dullards. But let the 787 EARN its place and prove it is the real deal and then paste on the praise.

They didn't do that. They went 150% hype and probably bragged a lot when they should have been humble and wow what a surprise everybody notices when the hype-machine has problems that might otherwise go without much notice.

In other words, they hyped the hell out of it and golly if they didn't get hype for the errors and issues too. Sometimes it's better to stay out of the spotlight, but that tends to be easier to do when the whole company isn't riding on ONE model. Geez, Boeing.

To be fair, the same hype crap happens at the Detroit car show where they award "Car of the year" to a new model that hasn't actually gone on sale yet, hasn't proved it's something people want to buy or is reliable or even notable in any actual real-world way. I think the Volt got the award one such year. And wow was THAT a hot seller! Just flying off the shelves! Or not. It may make for nice headlines but it means jack shit when the vehicle has never sold copy-one to anybody.

Indeed, I was in Redmond for business purposes a few years ago and part of the arranged evening amusement was a guided tour of the Boeing museum. So many great aircraft came from Boeing, this is an unfortunate bump on the road to progress.

Yet? The aircraft are grounded, and they will be until they're certain the problem won't reappear.

The FAA quite clearly wanted this plane in the air, and it's only been the extremely obvious nature of the problems that has grounded the plane.

And why, exactly, is the plane "fundamentally flawed"? The experimental nature of the aircraft

It's not an experiment any more.

mainly involves the composite nature of the materials and the new avionics- nothing related to why these planes were grounded. I've heard some talk of delamination of the composites, but if that were a serious issue, then the aircraft would have been grounded for that reason instead of battery fires.

Those issues have probably yet to surface. They are clearly trying to curt corners to not only save cost but save weight. I suspect the carbon composite build of the plane did not give them the fuel savings that would make the plane anywhere near compelling.

The late 60's Honda 305 "Dream" was an aspirational motorcycle (well, I wanted one anyway!) but was called "The Nightmare" by owners. Pressed-steel frame, about an inch and a half of leading-link suspension travel. It was a better name than Benley, though (the name of their smaller displacement twins).

Off-topic memory from then: Sochiro Honda was asked by an interviewer if there was any truth to the rumor that Hondas were made with recycled beer cans. "No," he replied, "They're made from recycled B-29's